The ultra-liberal, pro-Obama New York Times published a major article on Sunday indicating that there is trouble within the Obama economic team as advisers wrestle with worsening conditions even after the Administration pumped hundreds of billions of tax dollars into the economy.
On the same day, the Associated Press, which has also engaged in Obama-cheerleading, issued a report stating that runaway government spending has actually deepened our economic woes. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have long decried deficit spending as a means of successfully addressing a recession, but what is a surprise is that the AP is now finally admitting it.
And then, on the very same day as the 2 articles mentioned above, Voice of America News reported that the Obama White House was stunned by the terrible unemployment figures for May. Apparently the Obama team was caught off-guard by the May jobless numbers, which indicate a deepening crisis that will only get much, much worse over the summer as the nation will be hit by plant closures, layoffs, and business failures resulting from the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler.
Thus, the Teflon coating that the mainstream media provided for Barack Obama, shielding him from the negative consequences of his economic philosophy, is developing cracks. Even the most openly partisan outlets of the mainstream media are beginning to take notice that the Obama plan is actually making things worse.
On top of all of this, Obama announced this morning that he intends to levy a hefty tax increase on the wealthy in order to pay for a government takeover of healthcare, which will involve starting a government-owned-and-run healthcare company that will compete with private enterprise. The plan, if implemented, will cost the taxpayers added billions on top of the current deficit spending.
While the very proposal itself is shocking, that is a matter for another column on another day. The issue here is the cost and the plan to pay for it.
In 1932, at the start of the worst days of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover and Congress raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The result? 1933 and 1934 are on record as the darkest days of the Depression, a direct result of government's actions to vastly inhibit the ability of the wealthy to inject capital into the economy.
The fact that Obama is going to do the very same thing that led to disaster in 1932 indicates that either he is shockingly naive, or he is a madman.